Deteriorating energy infrastructure, lacklustre entrepreneurship and poor competition rules are holding back the Australian economy, with a new report suggesting a drop in competitiveness is putting at risk future prosperity. In a ranking of the most resilient economies, Australia fell to 20th place from first place in 2004, analysis by Institute of Public Affairs senior fellow Kevin You found.
Michael Briggs is drowning in red tape. Briggs says his manufacturing firm Six Wheeler Conversions, which converts four wheel vehicles to six wheels, has spent $300,000 on regulations in the past three years meeting state and federal certification requirements Briggs says new vehicle conversions require federal certification while modifications on preregistered vehicles require state certification. He says a new federal application system was implemented for second stage vehicle manufacturing approvals three years ago, quadrupling the approval process, typically taking more than five months per vehicle model.
Labor’s proposed industrial relations laws will smash suburban high streets and make it less likely that they will hire casual workers in the future, according to the peak organisation for small businesses. “The new definition of casuals is three pages long and comprises 15 different tests. You shouldn’t need a PhD in law to know how to hire a casual worker,” said Luke Achterstraat, chief executive of the Council of Small Business Organisations Australia.
“If increased regulatory burdens cause new mining projects to be delayed or cancelled, Australia will be unable to satisfy the rising iron ore demand created by net zero targets,” Hancock Prospecting chief executive of group operations Gerhard Veldsman said. Gina Rinehart has warned controversial industrial relations reforms could push mining away from Australia to countries with lower environmental standards.
Australia is struggling under the burden of red tape that is growing at nearly twice the rate of the national economy, leading to urgent calls for parliament to act to cut out-of-date regulations and ban new rules from being imposed without old ones being repealed.
Major employer groups have ramped up their calls for the Federal Government to dump or delay its controversial industrial relations changes, saying recent concessions do not go far enough. But the broader business groups believe the changes are not properly detailed and do not allay other fears about the laws.
More than half said they would stop hiring casuals if the changes came into effect, while 36 per cent said they would shed staff. Stagnating productivity is a serious threat to Australia’s economic prosperity. Australia can not afford to sit back and expect the riches to flow. Our politicians need to get the policy settings right to encourage investment, not dampen it. Because a prosperous Australian economy will make things better — and fairer — for all.
The Pastoralists and Graziers Association of WA (PGA) Awards dinner, at Crown Botanicals last week, was a chance to glam up and reflect on a successful day of speakers and interaction at the annual PGA Convention held earlier in the day. The 2023 PGA Rural Achievement Award, for service to the agricultural industry, rural and regional Western Australia and the PGA was announced by PGA president Tony Seabrook. The winner was Gina Rinehart, executive chairman of both Hancock Prospecting and Hancock Agriculture, with the award accepted on her behalf by Hancock Agriculture CEO, Adam Giles.
But Mr Veldsman said that, under the Bill, there was no guarantee those different categories of driver would continue to be paid about the same. “We’re talking about draft legislation where the ‘full rate of pay’ is so unclear, so undefined, so broad and so open to speculation that we can’t say in future if this Bill is to actually pass that we can still do that,” he said. Mr Veldsman added a number of Hancock’s projects had already stalled due to red tape. Another major concern is a proposal to give casual workers the right to ask to convert to permanent employment after six months of regular hours.
